The Red Chameleon by Erica Wright

Kathleen Stone has many names and many disguises.  She can look young or old, sedate or flashy or cheap, and she adopts cadences and speech to go with the character she's creating.  She's also a private investigator, so these skills come in handy.

Pegasus and Edelweiss allowed me to read this book for review (thank you).  It has been published, so check with your local bookstore for a copy.

When Kathleen's mark, a potentially meandering husband, visits a bar and has a drink she's right behind him.  She expects him to meet up with a lady but he just drinks his drink and visits the john.  When he doesn't come back from the bathroom, she's afraid he's skipped on her.  No, he didn't skip.  He's dead...

She knows better than to get caught there; she'd become their #1 suspect.  She escapes for the time being but is glad she talked to the guy next to her.  He can alibi her if she needs it.  He can do more than that unfortunately.

She used to be an undercover cop and has some very bad enemies.  When her place gets ransacked and it appears someone is after her, she's afraid it might come from them.  However, she's still working this murder case (mostly to clear herself) and she wonders if that's what is causing her unpopularity.

Her life gets even more complicated when the cop investigating the case is a guy she went to the academy with.  She's always had an interest in him and it seems he might still have one for her, too.  Then an old lover from the past who was also an undercover cop offers to take her with him on his escape from the mainland for a beach somewhere.  He can still touch her libido but could they really get along?

I enjoyed the mystery and the romance but mostly I enjoyed her wigs, her costumes, her odd friends and how she gets a drag queen to fix her up for a final confrontation.  Kathleen is an usual character herself and I hope to see another in this series.